Dehlin Taking Things out of Context

[sunstoned]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

All the  more reason for him to exhibit standard professional scholarship in his anti-religiously oriented endeavors, rather than merely display his deep-seated hatred and prejudice toward the LDS Church.  As a PhD, he has strong ethical obligations to tell the truth, rather than engaging in disreputable sniping and obfuscation.

I can't judge Dehlin because I have not listened to his pod cast, and do not plan to.  But I do know that what you have said here is truthful.  A holder of a doctoral degree does have a moral and ethical obligation to be truthful and grounded in solid scholarship.  This means setting aside personal biases as much as possible, or at least acknowledging them in a positionality statement so that readers/listeners can be so informed. 

[cinepro]

40 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

 A holder of a doctoral degree does have a moral and ethical obligation to be truthful and grounded in solid scholarship.  This means setting aside personal biases as much as possible, or at least acknowledging them in a positionality statement so that readers/listeners can be so informed. 

If that's the case, I hope Dr. Dehlin has sturdy malpractice insurance.

Edited May 30, 2018 by cinepro

[Thinking]

20 hours ago, EdGoble said:

There is nothing in the gospel that guarantees that people will be healed or relieved of anything in the human condition just because of obedience.  But they are only promised that they will be healed if it is the will of God that they are healed, and seldom does healing mean people need to be perfect to be healed, but sometimes blessings work, and sometimes they don't, according to the will of the Lord.

If the will of the Lord is what determines whether a blessing works, what then is the purpose of the blessing?

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 minutes ago, Thinking said:

If the will of the Lord is what determines whether a blessing works, what then is the purpose of the blessing?

An inspired blessing communicates the will of the Lord. This can be an incredible source of comfort.

A post of mine from four years ago addresses this point:

Quote

The value of a priesthood blessing is in assisting people to tap into the will of God via their faith--remember that God respects our agency and will not tread on it--and in revealing that will to them, providing comfort and peace.

As I've shared in this forum before, I was as a missionary called upon to give a priesthood blessing to the grandfather of a woman whom I had earlier taught. Her family had given her endless grief over her conversion, but one of her elder sisters had relented and agreed that allowing the Elders to give a blessing couldn't hurt, so the two of of them rang us one night to let us know that they would be travelling up to the hospital the next evening for this purpose. That gave my companion and me 24 hours to prepare ourselves, and we prayed mightily and fasted in the hope that we could be instruments, not only in saving this man's life but in revealing God's power to this very non supportive family.

As we prepared, I felt the Spirit of the Lord rest upon us in a significant way, and I was fully prepared to walk into the hospital room and command the unconscious but suffering man to be made whole. I had that much faith. My companion annointed, and then it was time for me to seal the annointing. I laid my hands on the recipient's head, spoke the opening formalities, and then stopped. In a way I still can't adequately explain, I 'saw' the man's impending death and clearly understood when it would happen. I had no idea what to do next. The words I had saved up in my mind all had to do with healing, not death. What does one say to a dying man? The silence worried my companion, who started tapping his fingers on the backs of my hands to urge me to proceed. Inside, I was praying like mad: 'Father, what do you want me to do since he's going to die?'

Then the inspiration came. I blessed him that he would pass away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family--all of whom lived about 300km away--and that he would be free from the agonising pain he'd been experiencing up til that time.

When we'd finished, the four of us stepped out into the corridor, and the non-member sister asked, 'What the hell was that? N---- told me that you were going to heal him. Instead you blessed him that he'd die peacefully.' I tried to explain something about the will of God, but it was awkward. Then her demeanour changed, and she asked, 'When is he going to die?' For some reason, she thought I'd know that--in retrospect, I'm still impressed by her trust!--and, miraculously, I did. I told them that they had exactly one week and encouraged them to gather the family and get them to the hospital on the appointed day.

Amazingly, the entire family responded to this request and travelled up to the hospital to be there the following week. As they surrounded the bed of their loved one, he passed away peacefully as promised. The member granddaughter rang to tell us...and to inform us that the nurses had said that they'd stopped the morphine injections the night we'd been there because her grandfather had stopped writhing in pain. He was still unconscious when he passed away, but he was comfortable and at peace.

The blessing my companion and I gave in no way altered the will of God, but it did reveal it and connect people with it, and THAT was a tremendous blessing to everyone involved. I talked to the member granddaughter just a few months ago. After many years, none of her family members have ever become members of the Church, but they all ceased giving her grief over her choice to become a Latter-day Saint. My companion and I were even invited to the funeral and treated as special guests of honour. In the end, all of our righteous desires were granted, but they were granted according to the Lord's wisdom, tailored to this specific situation.

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by Hamba Tuhan

[Calm]

Unworthiness is not the same thing in my opinion as worthlessness.

God values us, so how can we view ourselves as worthless?

[Jeanne]

17 hours ago, Calm said:

So you see no need for Christ then?  Since his Atonement is a false teaching in your view?  Just curious.

We are children of God in a mortal state..but we are not born evil and immediately need to redeem ourselves.  Such doctrine sucks up the very good we can see in ourselves and  spirals on to a state of "never"  being good enough. Even in the very law of repentance..with the atonement for which I am grateful..we are always in the struggle..to attain more spirituality..to get to God..who loves us anyway.  I just don't think that it was His intention to make us rise from such deep depths of mortality.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Jeanne

[Gray]

18 hours ago, Jeanne said:

The quote..I just love.  It says a lot in how I feel about myself..and the self I want to become.

For what it's worth, atonement theology did not develop until years after the lifetime of Jesus.

[Jeanne]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

For what it's worth, atonement theology did not develop until years after the lifetime of Jesus.

Thank you,,I did not know that...I figured the apostles knew what this was all about..and Jesus had told them. This changes how I think now..don't know what yet..but something has shifted again for me.  Thanks. 

[Kenngo1969]

Quote

 

[Hamba Tuhan quoting John Dehlin, emphasis added by Kenngo1969] I realize now that the teaching of the Atonement also strikes at the core of much religious-based harm, in that it plants/spreads the idea that we are all inherently flawed/broken/bad/fallen/dirty/sinful, and are thus dependent on a set of beliefs and/or a man-led institution to become whole/fixed/good/saved/worthy/clean again ...

I love the teachings of Christ around kindness, charity/service, forgiveness, and love. The stuff around sin, atonement, and repentance, however ... I no longer love ... [ellipsis original]

 

Fair enough.  I suppose Mr. Dehlin can incinerate untold numbers of straw men with the rhetorical flamethrower he seems to be toting, and that's one of them: It has never been the doctrine or teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the Church supplants Christ in His salvific role; repeatedly, over, and over and over again, the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ is reiterated in its canon, that Christ and Christ alone saves.

The teachings Mr. Dehlin "no longer loves" are at the very center of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even the very best of us cannot make it halfway through this life (let alone into the next) without the Savior and His Atonement.  The Book of Mormon (love it or hate it, Mr. Dehlin?) makes this absolutely crystal clear.  Others' mileage may vary.  Let he who (dis)believes beware.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Kenngo1969

[BlueDreams]

On 5/29/2018 at 3:17 AM, EdGoble said:

In the latest Mormon Stories Interview "Depression, Mormonism and Faith Transitions," Dehlin once again takes things out of context, where he says that it makes his interviewee "angry" that someone could have been healed if they just had more faith or not sinned.  And he points people to the resource on LDS.org where it talks about the spirit and how it is hard for people to feel it when they have a mental illness:

https://www.lds.org/mentalhealth?lang=eng

Nowhere is it implied that people have a guarantee of being healed from a mental illness if they had just been less of a sinner.  Nobody implied that more obedience was a guarantee of a cure for mental illness.  But people are told that they ought to get treatment for it.  If people want to be relieved of the symptoms of mental illness, they need to be on drugs that are prescribed to them, thanks to medical science, which the Lord has blessed us with, to help us deal with the human condition, not to be relieved entirely of it.

The whole thing is yet another ludicrous thing that takes everything totally out of context.

There is nothing in the gospel that guarantees that people will be healed or relieved of anything in the human condition just because of obedience.  But they are only promised that they will be healed if it is the will of God that they are healed, and seldom does healing mean people need to be perfect to be healed, but sometimes blessings work, and sometimes they don't, according to the will of the Lord.

My cousin quoted Dehlin's reaction a while back on FB. If it was anything like the podcast, I would agree. He seemed to take it out of context in assuming that the article was saying that if you don't feel the spirit like other's do, you must be depressed. But in the context, it was pretty clear that it was saying that depression may be a reason someone may find it difficult to feel spiritual promptings or experiences that they previously had. Which is accurate within the framework of active LDS seeking answers to what their experiencing from a religious source.... someone who had felt spiritual promptings or enjoy religious communion of some sort and now feel a loss in spiritual interest or connection they used to feel/enjoy (that would fit as a form of Anhedonia)...which with where it is, that's who is likely to read said article.

 

With luv,

BD  

 

 

Edited May 30, 2018 by BlueDreams

[BlueDreams]

17 hours ago, cinepro said:

If that's the case, I hope Dr. Dehlin has sturdy malpractice insurance.

It's been a little bit sense I last checked in with anything Dehlin related. But I don't think he's a practicing psychologist but does "coaching"....ie. he's a life coach. He may be Dr. Dehlin wit his completed degree. But you need a license to practice and meet qualifications for such. You don't need that for coaching. Again, that could have changed though. 

 

With luv,

BD 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Jeanne said:

but we are not born evil and immediately need to redeem ourselves.  Such doctrine sucks up the very good we can see in ourselves and  spirals on to a state of "never"  being good enough. Even in the very law of repentance..with the atonement for which I am grateful..we are always in the struggle..to attain more spirituality..to get to God..who loves us anyway.  I just don't think that it was His intention to make us rise from such deep depths of mortality.

This is not LDS theology...if that is what you are suggesting.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Calm

[Jeanne]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

This is not LDS theology...if that is what you are suggesting.

No. I am suggesting that LDS is doctrine is wrong.

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

No. I am suggesting that LDS is doctrine is wrong.

And what doctrine is that as you did not describe LDS doctrine.  We, for example, do not believe children are born evil, but innocent.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/infant-baptism?lang=eng

Edited May 30, 2018 by Calm

[Jeanne]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

And what doctrine is that as you did not describe LDS doctrine.  We, for example, do not believe children are born evil, but innocent.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/infant-baptism?lang=eng

I understand that.  But baptism changes that..and it becomes a struggle to be happy.  We all sin in one capacity or another and should strive to be better..a better people not just for the Savior but for ourselves.  The doctrine sometimes speaks of never being quite good enough..when I think that God gives us more mileage than the people around us. 

[Calm]

27 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

But baptism changes that..and it becomes a struggle to be happy.  We all sin in one capacity or another and should strive to be better..a better people not just for the Savior but for ourselves. 

I certainly agree with the second, but I believe the first depends a great deal on personal interpretation.

I never perceived my own unhappiness when it occurs or when I see it in almost everyone else because of "never being quite good enough" in terms of sin.  There are a few people who I see as profoundly unhappy because of choices they made to intentionally not abide by the Law of Chastity in their marriages and lost their families because of it, but that is only because they explain their choices as obvious (they saw themselves as missing out on the fun of having more 'romance' in their lives because they decided they had just settled and only later realized it wasn't all that great to begin with and they had had what they really wanted).

[Kenngo1969]

21 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Did you listen to the podcast, or are you just jumping on the ad hominem hate wagon.

Catastrophize much?  

[why me]

8 hours ago, Jeanne said:

  The doctrine sometimes speaks of never being quite good enough..

Much depends on how a person interprets a doctrine. I don't think that the church teaches what you suggest. I don't think that the lds church teaches any such thing. It does teach that no one is perfect and thus, repentence is important.. What would it mean not to be good enough? Perhaps this is a Utah cultural thing.

[why me]

John seems to have made a career with his church membership and former church membership. It has been a very good business for him. Without the lds church I have no idea what he would do for a living. Why bother to discuss a man who is basically made it his job to be critical of a faith he was once a member of?

[changed]

On 5/29/2018 at 4:17 AM, EdGoble said:

There is nothing in the gospel that guarantees that people will be healed or relieved of anything in the human condition just because of obedience.  

Actually, there are quite a few articles and GC talks promising people blessings for obedience...

https://www.lds.org/search?lang=eng&query=blessings+for+obedience

"experiment on the word..." and?  what exactly is the experiment?  if there is no cause/effect - if you can follow the commandments and there is are no blessings attached, does that mean the experiment was a failure?  What exactly is an experiment if there are no results?

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by changed

[Calm]

4 hours ago, why me said:

John seems to have made a career with his church membership and former church membership. It has been a very good business for him. Without the lds church I have no idea what he would do for a living. Why bother to discuss a man who is basically made it his job to be critical of a faith he was once a member of?

He had a decent paying job, I believe at Microsoft before deciding to go back to school and then get paid for his work on Mormon criticism.

[changed]

John seems to be a personal counselor who specializes in faith transitions.  He is very supportive of the church in many aspects, and does not strike me as being angry or resentful to either people within or without the church.  I think he is an honest and supportive moderate who has found healthy ways to address concerns, and support people with whichever direction they personally decide to take.  

[cinepro]

I've been listening to the Dehlin interview with Roger Hendrix (who formerly worked as a manager of the Deseret Trust).  This exchange is classic Dehlin:
 

Quote

 

Dehlin: Would you ever had visibility into how much tithing the Church gets every year?

Hendrix:  You know everybody speculates.  And I'm not opposed to speculating personally on that...

Dehlin: You're not?  Do you have a guess as to what that number might be?

Hendrix:  You know, like 20 years ago I said it was $10 billion a year...but it's more now.  It's a worldwide Church. 

Dehlin: So, maybe, $100 billion now? You're saying in tithing revenue?

Hendrix: Yeah.  That's tightly held information.

Episode 922 - 1:03:55 (#4)

 

Now, I don't want to make Dehlin an offender for a word, but how could any rational person get from $10 billion in tithing revenue 20 years ago to $100 billion today?  What possible theory of growth could account for that? 

But the problem is that the number was never challenged or corrected, so now it becomes a piece of information.  I guarantee you that eventually you're going to hear someone say "I'm pretty sure the Church gets $100 billion in tithing revenue.  I know I've heard that confirmed somewhere."

That, to me, sums up the frustration of listening to a lot of the Mormon Stories podcasts.  That and exchanges like this dramatization:
 

Quote

 

Dehlin: So we're talking with Dr. Anderson, a specialist in LDS famliy therapy and family dynamics. Dr. Anderson is here to talk about the psychology of a faith crisis and how to strengthen marriages.  Thank you Dr. Anderson for sharing so much about your life experience growing up.  One quick question: How do you feel about the steel swords in the Book of Mormon and all the incongruities that prove that it's false?

Anderson: I'm...wait...what?

Dehlin: Exactly.  And moving on, your thoughts on the Joseph Smith papyri and the obvious fraud of the Book of Abraham?

Anderson: I don't know much about that stuff.

Dehlin:  Right...right.  So real quick, what was up with Joseph Smith marrying other men's wives.  Isn't that kind of weird?

Anderson: (Looking around confused) I guess.?

Dehlin:  And as a Mormon, you still believe in God, and Jesus?

Anderson: Uh, yes.  I do.

Dehlin: Right.  So back to what you were saying about families in inter-faith marriages...

 

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by cinepro

[USU78]

On 5/29/2018 at 8:27 PM, clarkgoble said:

Except that there was something like a concept of sin in neoplatonism. Indeed Augustine's concept of sin owes more to neoplatonism than Christianity (IMO). You have privation versus turning to the One. While I'm not sure that's quite sin - although there's a very similar conception in D&C 93. The idea is that sin is privation or turning away or rejecting light. Evil becomes pure privation and sin is tied to this. (It's actually much more nuanced than that - so that's the first order approximation)

Among the Stoics, who in the first century were more common than the platonists, there wasn't a formal notion of sin. However there were similar things to sin that Paul actually builds common ground on in places like 1 Cor 7. Sin for the stoics is much more moral failing and to that degree common ground can be found. However for the Stoics the process is rather different from the atonement - although I actually think there's a lot of common ground. The Stoics had a lot of practical advice that I think works in practice. Particularly dealing with emotions and the like. 

Of course my initial statement was a bit of hyperbole, although I actually think there is a strong cultural move against the notion of sin. Particularly the way postmodernism (of a sort) undermines stable meanings. Oddly at the same time though there's a cultural rebirth of sin in notions of intersectionality. Indeed in some ways it's recreating many Christian conceptions but without God and with a different list of sins.

In other words ... Dehlin is disingenuous.

[USU78]

39 minutes ago, changed said:

John seems to be a personal counselor who specializes in faith transitions.  He is very supportive of the church in many aspects, and does not strike me as being angry or resentful to either people within or without the church.  I think he is an honest and supportive moderate who has found healthy ways to address concerns, and support people with whichever direction they personally decide to take.  

Zeezrom? Simon Magus? Korihor?